Love for the brethren must be universal; significance of
God's true place in the heart

Love for the brethren proves the reality of our love for
God. And this love must be universal, must be in exercise
towards all Christians, for whoever believes that Jesus is the
Christ is born of God; and he who loves a person will love one
who is born of Him. And if the being born of Him is the motive,
we shall love all that are born of Him (1 John 5: 1).

But a danger exists on the other side. It may be, that we love
the brethren because they are pleasant to us; they furnish us with
agreeable society, in which our conscience is not wounded. A
counter-proof is therefore given us. "Hereby we know that we love
the children of God, if we love God and keep his commandments." It
is not as children of God that I love the brethren, unless I love
God of whom they are born. I may love them individually as
companions, or I may love some among them, but not as the children
of God, if I do not love God Himself. If God Himself has not His
true place in my heart, that which bears the name of love to the
brethren shuts out God; and that in so much the more complete and
subtle manner, because our link with them bears the sacred name of
brotherly love.

Obedience to His commands the touchstone for the love of God;
the marks of true brotherly love

Now there is a touchstone even for this love of God, namely,
obedience to His commands. If I walk with the brethren themselves
in disobedience to their Father, it is certainly not because they
are His children that I love them. If it were because I loved the
Father and because they were His children, I should assuredly like
them to obey Him. To walk then in disobedience with the children
of God, under the pretext of brotherly love, is not to love them as
the children of God. If I loved them as such, I should love their
Father and my Father, and I could not walk in disobedience to Him
and call it a proof that I loved them because they were His.

If I also loved them because they were His children, I should
love all who are such, because the same motive engages me to love
them all.

The universality of this love with regard to all the children of
God; its exercise in practical obedience to His will: these are the
marks of true brotherly love. That which has not these marks is a
mere carnal party spirit, clothing itself with the name and the
forms of brotherly love. Most certainly I do not love the Father if
I encourage His children in disobedience to Him.

The world and its enmity; its opposition to God's
commandments

Now there is an obstacle to this obedience, and that is the
world. The world has its forms, which are very far from obedience
to God. When we are occupied only with Him and His will, the
world's enmity soon breaks out. It also acts, by its comforts and
its delights, on the heart of man as walking after the flesh. In
short, the world and the commandments of God are in opposition to
each other; but the commandments of God are not grievous to those
who are born of Him, for he who is born of God overcomes the
world. He possesses a nature and a principle that surmount the
difficulties that the world opposes to his walk. His nature is the
divine nature, for he is born of God; his principle is that of
faith. His nature is insensible to the attractions which this world
offers to the flesh, and that because it has, altogether apart from
this world, a spirit independent of it, and an object of its own
which governs it. Faith directs its steps, but faith does not see
the world, nor that which is present. Faith believes that Jesus,
whom the world rejected, is the Son of God. The world therefore has
lost its power over it. Its affections and its trust are fixed on
Jesus, who was crucified, owning Him as the Son of God Thus the
believer, detached from the world, has the boldness of obedience,
and does the will of God which abides for ever.

God's testimony to life eternal as His gift; its source

The apostle sums up, in a few words, the testimony of God
respecting the life eternal which He has given us.

This life is not in the first Adam, it is in the last -- in the
Son of God. Man, as born of Adam, does not possess it, does not
acquire it. He ought indeed to have gained life under the law. This
characterised it, "Do this and live." But man did not and could
not.

God gives him eternal life, and this life is in His Son. He who
has the Son has life, and he who has not the Son has not life.

The three witnesses to God's gift of life eternal; God's
sentence of death on the first Adam

Now what is the testimony rendered to this gift of life eternal?
The witnesses are three: the Spirit, the water, and the blood. This
Jesus, the Son of God, is He who came by water and by blood; not by
water only, but by water and by blood. The Spirit also bears
witness because He is truth. That to which they bear witness is
that God has given us eternal life, and that this life is in His
Son. But whence did this water and the blood flow? It was from the
pierced side of Jesus. It is the judgment of death pronounced and
executed (compare Rom. 8: 3) on the flesh, on all that is of the
old man, on the first Adam. Not that the sin of the first Adam was
in the flesh of Christ, but that Jesus died in it as a sacrifice
for sin. "In that he died he died unto sin once." Sin in the flesh
was condemned in the death of Christ in the flesh. There was no
other remedy. The flesh could not be modified nor subjected to the
law. The life of the first Adam was nothing but sin in the
principle of its will; it could not be subject to the law. Our
purification as to the old man is its death. He who is dead is
justified from sin. We are therefore baptised to have part in the
death of Jesus. We are crucified with Christ; nevertheless we live,
but not we, it is Christ who lives in us. Participating in the life
of Christ risen, we reckon ourselves as dead with Him; for why live
of this new life, this life of the last Adam, if we could live
before God in the life of the first Adam? No; by living in Christ
we have accepted by faith the sentence of death, passed by God on
the first Adam. This is christian purification: even the death of
the old man, because we are made partakers of life in Christ
Jesus. "We are dead" -- crucified with Him. We need a perfect
purification before God; we have it, for that which was impure no
longer exists: what exists, as born of God, as perfectly pure.

The testimony of the water flowing from the side of a dead
Christ; purification is by death

He came by water -- a powerful testimony, as flowing from the
side of a dead Christ, that life is not to be sought for in the
first Adam; for Christ, as coming for man, taking up his cause, the
Christ come in the flesh, had to die: else He had remained alone in
His own purity. Life is to be sought for in the Son of God risen
from among the dead. Purification is by death.

The blood of a slain Christ showing that expiation is by
death

But it was not by water only that He came; it was also by
blood. The expiation of our sins was as necessary as the moral
purification of our souls. We possess it in the blood of a slain
Christ. Death alone could expiate them and blot them out, and Jesus
died for us. The guilt of the believer no longer exists before God;
Christ has put Himself in his place. The life is on high, and we
are raised up together with Him, God having forgiven us all our
trespasses. Expiation is by death.

The Spirit's testimony enabling us to appreciate the value of
the water and the blood

The third witness is the Spirit: put first in the order of their
testimony on earth, as He alone gives witness in power so that we
know the other two; last, in their historic order, for such in fact
was that order, death first and only thereafter the Holy Ghost.* In
effect it is the testimony of the Spirit, His presence in us, which
enables us to appreciate the value of the water and the blood. We
should never have understood the practical bearing of the death of
Christ, if the Holy Ghost were not to the new man a revealing power
of its import and its efficacy. Now the Holy Ghost came down from a
risen and ascended Christ; and thus we know that eternal life is
given us in the Son of God.

{*Even the orderly reception of the Holy Ghost was so (see Acts
2: 38).}

The grace, the gift, and the testimony of God that the life He
gives is in His Son

The testimony of these three witnesses meets together in this
same truth, namely, that grace -- that God Himself -- has given us
eternal life; and that this life is in the Son. Man had nothing to
do in it, except by his sins. It is the gift of God, and the life
that He gives is in the Son. The testimony is the testimony of
God. How blessed to have such a testimony, and that from God
Himself, and in perfect grace!

We have then the three things: the cleansing, the expiation, and
the presence of the Holy Ghost as the witness that eternal life is
given us in the Son, who was slain for man when in relationship
with man here below. He could but die for man as he is. Life is
elsewhere, namely, in Himself.

The reason the apostle wrote the epistle: that they who
believed in the Son might know they had eternal life

Here the doctrine of the epistle ends. The apostle wrote these
things in order that they who believed in the Son might know that
they had eternal life. He does not give means of examination to
make the faithful doubt whether they had eternal life; but --
seeing that there were seducers who endeavoured to turn them aside
as deficient in something important, and who presented themselves
as possessing some superior light -- he points out to them the
marks of life, in order to re-assure them; developing the
excellence of that life, and of their position as enjoying it; and
in order that they might understand that God had given it to them,
and that they might be in no wise shaken in mind.

Practical confidence in God as to our wants here below

He then speaks of the practical confidence in God which flows
from all this -- confidence exercised with a view to all our wants
here below, all that our hearts desire to ask of God.

God's ear is ever open, therefore He grants our requests

We know that He always listens to everything that we ask in
accordance with His will. Precious privilege! The Christian himself
would not desire anything to be granted him that was contrary to
the will of God. But for everything that is according to His will,
His ear is ever open to us, ever attentive. He always hearkens; He
is not like man, often occupied so that he cannot listen, or
careless so that he will not. God always hears us, and assuredly He
does not fail in power: the attention He pays us is a proof of His
good-will. We receive therefore the things that we ask of Him. He
grants our requests. What a sweet relationship! What a high
privilege! And it is one also of which we may avail ourselves in
charity for others.

Sin and its chastisement; the sin unto death

If a brother sins and God chastises him, we may petition for
that brother, and life shall be restored him. Chastisement tends to
the death of the body (compare Job 33 and 34; James 5: 14, 15); we
pray for the offender and he is healed. Otherwise the sickness
takes its course. All unrighteousness is sin, and there is such sin
as is unto death. This does not seem to me to be some particular
sin, but all sin which has such a character that, instead of
awakening christian charity, it awakens christian indignation. Thus
Ananias and Sapphira committed a sin unto death. It was a lie, but
a lie under such circumstances that it excited horror rather than
compassion. We can easily understand this in other cases.

The new man, born of God, is to be occupied with the things of
God and of the Spirit

Thus far as to sin and its chastisement. But the positive side
is also brought before us. As born of God, we do not commit sin at
all, we keep ourselves, and "the wicked one toucheth us not." He
has nothing wherewith to entice the new man. The enemy has no
objects of attraction to the divine nature in us, which is
occupied, by the action of the Holy Ghost, with divine and heavenly
things, or with the will of God. Our part therefore is so to live
-- the new man occupied with the things of God and of the
Spirit.

Our nature, our mode of being, as Christians

The apostle ends his epistle by specifying these two things: our
nature, our mode of being, as Christians; and the object that has
been communicated to us in order to produce and nourish faith.

We know that we are of God; and that not in a vague way, but in
contrast with all that is not us -- a principle of immense
importance, which makes christian position exclusive by its very
nature. It is not merely good, or bad, or better; but it is of
God. And nothing which is not of God (that is to say, which has not
its origin in Him) could have this character and this place. The
whole world lies in the wicked one.

The Christian has the certainty of these two things by virtue of
his nature, which discerns and knows that which is of God, and
thereby judges all that is opposed to it. The two are not merely
good and bad, but of God and of the enemy. This as to the
nature.

The object communicated to us to produce a nourished faith

With regard to the object of this nature, we know that the Son
of God is come -- a truth of immense importance also. It is not
merely that there is good and that there is evil; but the Son of
God has Himself come into this scene of misery, to present an
object to our hearts. But there is more than this. He has given us
an understanding that in the midst of all the falsehood of this
world, of which Satan is the prince, we may know Him that is true
-- the true One. Immense privilege which alters our whole position!
The power of the world by which Satan blinded us is completely
broken, and we are brought into the true light; and in that light
we see and know Him who is true, who is in Himself perfection; that
by which all things can be perfectly discerned and judged according
to truth. But this is not all. We are in this true One, partakers
of His nature, and abiding in Him, and in order that we may enjoy
the source of truth.* Now it is in Jesus that we are. It is thus,
it is in Him, that we are in connection with the perfections of
God.

{*I have already noticed this passage as being a kind of key to
the way we really know God, and dwell in Him. It speaks of God as
Him we know, in whom we are, explaining it by saying, that it is in
His Son Jesus Christ our Lord; only here, as follows in the text,
it is truth and not love.}

God and Christ united in the apostle's mind; the divine links
of our position

We may again remark here -- that which gives a character to the
whole epistle -- the manner in which God and Christ are united in
the apostle's mind. It is on account of this that he so frequently
says, "He," when we must understand "Christ," although he had
previously spoken of God: for instance, 1 John 4: 20. And here, "We
are in him that is true [that is to say], in his Son Jesus
Christ. This is the true God and eternal life."

Behold then the divine links of our position! We are in Him who
is true; this is the nature of Him in whom we are. Now, in reality
as to the nature, it is God Himself; as to the Person, and as to
the manner of being in Him, it is His Son Jesus Christ. It is in
the Son, in the Son as man, that we are in fact as to His Person;
but He is the true God, the veritable God.

Nor is this all; but we have life in Him. He is also the eternal
life, so that we possess it in Him. We know the true God, we have
eternal life.

All outside God's purposes and nature is an idol; preservation
from it; connection between John's epistles

All that is outside this is an idol. May God preserve us from
it, and teach us by His grace to preserve ourselves from it! This
gives occasion to the Spirit of God to speak of "the truth" in the
two short epistles that follow.